Midnight Ride of Gildarts Clive
by Konoha's D. Last Dragneel
Summary: Fairy Tail's Gildarts Clive has changed history...Will his legacy be remembered as who he was or as another person? Disclaimers: I do not own Fairy Tail or Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "Paul Revere's Ride"


**Gildarts Clive's Ride**

 **Natsu Dragneel**

Listen my children and you shall hear  
Of the midnight ride of Gildarts Clive,  
On the eighteenth of April, in X Seven Seventy-five;  
Hardly a man is now alive  
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If Alvarez march  
By land or sea from the town to-night,  
Send a blast aloft in the belfry arch  
Of the Old Kardia Cathedral as a signal crash,-  
One if by land, and two if by sea;  
And I on the opposite shore will be,  
Ready to ride and spread the alarm  
Through every Fiore city and town,  
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar  
Silently rowed to the Magnolia shore,  
Just as the moon rose over the bay,  
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay  
The Spriggan Twelve, Alvarez men-of-war;  
A phantom empire, with each mage and soldier  
Across the moon like a prison bar,  
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified  
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street  
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,  
Till in the silence around him he hears  
The muster of men at the barrack door,  
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,  
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,  
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old Kardia Cathedral,  
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,  
To the belfry chamber overhead,  
And startled the pigeons from their perch  
On the sombre rafters, that round him made  
Masses and moving shapes of shade,-  
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,  
To the highest window in the wall,  
Where he paused to listen and look down  
A moment on the roofs of the town  
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,  
In their night encampment on the hill,  
Wrapped in silence so deep and still  
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,  
The watchful night-wind, as it went  
Creeping along from tent to tent,  
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"  
A moment only he feels the spell  
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread  
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;  
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent  
On a shadowy something far away,  
Where the river widens to meet the bay,-  
A line of black that bends and floats  
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,  
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride  
On the opposite shore walked Gildarts Clive.  
Now he patted his horse's side,  
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,  
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,  
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;  
But mostly he watched with eager search  
The belfry tower of the Old Kardia Cathedral,  
As it rose above the graves on the hill,  
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.  
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height  
A glimmer, and then a crash of light!  
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,  
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight  
A second crash in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,  
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,  
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a crash  
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;  
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the crash,  
The fate of a nation was riding that night;  
And the crash struck out by that steed, in his flight,  
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.  
He has left the village and mounted the steep,  
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,  
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;  
And under the alders that skirt its edge,  
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,  
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock  
When he crossed the bridge into Hargeon town.  
He heard the crowing of the cock,  
And the barking of the mage's Exceed,  
And felt the damp of the river fog,  
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the city clock,  
When he galloped into Crocus.  
He saw the gilded weathercock  
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,  
And the guild windows, black and bare,  
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,  
As if they already stood aghast  
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the city clock,  
When he came to the bridge in Magnolia town.  
He heard the bleating of the flock,  
And the twitter of birds among the trees,  
And felt the breath of the morning breeze  
Blowing over the meadow brown.  
And one was safe and asleep in his bed  
Who at the train would be first to fall,  
Who that day would be lying dead,  
Pierced by an Alvarez death blast.

You know the rest. In the books you have read  
How the Alvarez Empire fought and fled,-  
How the mages gave them spell for spell,  
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,  
Chasing the Spriggan Twelve down the lane,  
Then crossing the fields to emerge again  
Under the trees at the turn of the road,  
And only pausing to heal and attack.

So through the night rode Gildarts Clive;  
And so through the night went his crash of alarm  
To every Ishgar city and town,-  
A cry of strength, and not of fear,  
A voice in the darkness, a crash at the door,  
And a word that shall echo for evermore!  
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,  
Through all our history, to the last,  
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,  
The people will waken and listen to hear  
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,  
And the midnight message of Gildarts Clive.


End file.
